Word: protoplasmal
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Parental intervention can still save some of these barely visible blobs of protoplasm, and last week a few did get last-minute reprieves. But despite the best efforts of clinic officials, the majority of these "parents"--couples who had donated egg and sperm in an attempt at in-vitro fertilization (IVF)--cannot or will not be located. Without word from the parents within five years, British law requires that the embryos be destroyed. And so, after last-ditch appeals to the courts and Prime Minister John Major failed, the clinics began dumping the eggs and embryos like so much abandoned...
Sure, someday when I can't seem to get the sentences unsnarled, I might push back from my desk and say wearily, "The writing process is a mass of protoplasm containing a nucleus surrounded by a flexible outer membrane...
...energetically championed the latter explanation, speculating that the vendobionts represent a radically different architectural solution to the problem of growing large. These "creatures" - which reached an adult size of 3 ft. or more across - did not divide their bodies into cells, believes Seilacher, but into compartments so plumped with protoplasm that they resembled air mattresses. They appear to have had no predators, says Seilacher, and led a placid existence on the ocean floor, absorbing nutrients from seawater or manufacturing them with the help of symbiotic bacteria...
ABOUT THE ONLY EXCITEMENT IN AN AMOEBA'S LIFE is the chance to inflict major intestinal distress on unwary world travelers. And as every high school student knows, these one-celled blobs of protoplasm never get to fool around; they reproduce asexually, by splitting in two. But now comes a report in the journal Heredity that suggests amoebas are not dull so much as discreet. French scientists have looked at the genetic material of species of amoebas and found that their genes show the telltale signs of sexual mixing. They've never been caught in the act, though...
...These episodes are designed to be refreshingly outrageous for at least 15 years," says Coffey. Which means the bloated sack of protoplasm will be eliciting laughter well into the 21st century. The thought fills Kricfalusi with equanimity. "I think we are destroying the minds of America," he concludes. "And that's been one of my lifelong ambitions...